Facts Are Stubborn Things

Even a police state can't suppress them forever (via Newsmax Insider):

Amid reports that President Barack Obama's climate plan could cost industry close to $2 trillion, fifty-nine additional scientists skeptical of the threat of manmade global warming have been added to the U.S. Senate Minority Report on climate change.

They bring the total to more than seven hundred scientists from around the world who have spoken out against the hysteria created by Al Gore and other global warming alarmists, according to a statement issued by the office of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, ranking Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

The latest Minority Report includes three hundred scientists and climate researchers who have been added to the list since the initial report’s release in December 2007.

Many of the fifty-nine additional scientists are affiliated with prestigious institutions including NASA, the U.S. Navy and Air Force, the Defense Department, Energy Department, Princeton University, Tulane University, the U.S. Naval Academy and the EPA.

“Unfortunately, climate science has become political science,” said award-winning Princeton physicist Dr. Robert Austin, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

He told the minority staff on the Committee on March 2: “It is tragic that some perhaps well-meaning but politically motivated scientists who should know better have whipped up a global frenzy about a phenomenon which is statistically questionable at best.”

Dr. Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said the global temperature “has flattened and is actually going down. We are seeing a new shift toward cooler temperatures that will last for probably about three decades.”

As Newsmax.com reported, Obama's climate plan could cost industry nearly three times the $646 billion over eight years that the White House initially estimated for the so-called "cap-and-trade" legislation.

The plan seeks to reduce pollution by setting a limit on carbon emissions and allowing businesses and groups to buy allowances, although exact details have not been released.

But Dr. Diane Douglas, a climatologist who has worked for the Department of Energy, declared: “The recent ‘panic’ to control GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions and billions of dollars being dedicated for the task has me deeply concerned that the U.S. and other countries are spending precious global funds to stop global warming, when it is primarily being driven by natural forcing mechanisms.”

Among other comments from scientists included in the report:

“I am appalled at the state of discord in the field of climate science . . . There is no observational evidence that the addition of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have caused any temperature perturbations in the atmosphere.”

— Award-winning atmospheric scientist Dr. George T. Wolff, a former member of the EPA’s Science Advisory Board who served on a committee of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“The sky is not burning, and to claim that it is amounts to journalistic malpractice . . . The press only promotes the global warming alarmists and ignores or minimizes those of us who are skeptical.”

— Dr. Mark L. Campbell, a professor of chemistry at the U.S. Naval Academy.

“The cause of these global changes is fundamentally due to the sun and its effect on Earth as it moves about in its orbit, not from man-made activities.”

— Retired NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. William W. Vaughan, recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

All of the above illustrates, I think, that the energy police state that animates Red Barry's fondest dreams will not be born without some stiff efforts to abort it.

UPDATE: Just this morning I read (sorry, can't remember where I saw this, so no link) that cap & trade has been dropped from Congress' version of the FY'10 budget.  Looks like Lucifer's frantic lobbying was less than entirely successful.  If he can't get everything he wants from a Congress THIS "blue," the bloom is definitely off the rose.

And just think: This is only day #66 of the Obama Ascendancy.  Can his callow, brittle ego survive the ever-rougher road his extremism, dishonesty, and imperiousness are guaranteeing him?  Or is he capable of the humility that is prerequisite to learning how to be a Chief Executive on the fly?